Africa-Press – Angola. The MPLA president expressed the intention of continuing to invest “with great force” in the Health sector, to guarantee the quality of life of citizens, and, for the immediate, he would like to highlight the start, this year, of the construction works of the Hospital Oncology of Luanda.
João Lourenço stressed, at the mass act on Saturday, that the hospital will have the technical assistance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), based in Vienna, Austria. He referred, in this sense, that the Agency has a very specialized domain and offered to help the Angolan Government in the training of professionals in this health area, which involves doctors, nurses and technicians.
“We are going to cover a type of disease that, for us, is still a seven-headed beast, taking into account the little investment made in the diagnosis and treatment of cancerous diseases”, stressed the MPLA leader. When referring to oncological diseases, he acknowledged that the country is still far from having diagnostic capacity, so lately it has not been possible to detect the cases that arise, more often in adults or children.
For these cases, he noted that the Government is forced to send them abroad in order to receive qualified treatment. On the occasion, João Lourenço also announced the requalification and expansion of the Américo Boavida Hospital (HAB), whose works are already underway. This reference hospital, in operation since colonial times, he recalled, served Luandans and others for many years. “We must take our hats off to this health institution”, appealed the MPLA leader. For many years, argued João Lourenço, until other units such as the Hospital do Prenda and the General Hospital of Luanda appeared, “Américo Boavida” was practically the only hospital unit serving the capital and, from “serving us so much, it was tired and degraded from overuse”.
“It is so degraded that we feel it is our obligation to rehabilitate it. The works have already started, and the hospital will start operating again in a period of two to three years”, he pointed out, stressing that “with the conclusion of the works, Luanda will have a hospital with another quality of medical services, owing nothing to D. Alexandre do Nascimento or other units”, he emphasized. The president of the MPLA, João Lourenço, also recalled that Américo Boavida, who has always worked with the people of Luanda, was in the past a University Hospital, no longer being it, the country having been without a hospital of its kind for years. In addition to the requalification and expansion of Américo Boavida, he also announced the construction of the new University Hospital in Luanda. “The country will once again have a University Hospital, to prepare, in a very professional way,
Main Military Hospital
The MPLA leader made it known that the new Main Military Hospital will be built behind the Instituto Superior Militar (ISTM), with the size of a reference unit. João Lourenço said that the current facilities of the Military Hospital, which are being refurbished, no longer have “enough fabric to be enlarged”, hence, he justified, the decision was taken to build another structure outside the city centre.
Military hospitals, as a rule, he said, try to be the best, and this is the case all over the world. “It is not by chance that, all over the world, Heads of State are treated in military hospitals when they become ill. This is where the cream of research knowledge is concentrated.” MPLA president João Lourenço confirmed the construction of five more regional military hospitals, stressing that investment in military health institutions is always greater than in other hospital units.
“The country has lived through 27 years of war, and where there is war, there are wounded and dead. We have always had a Main Military Hospital in Luanda and small military hospitals in the military regions, which treated the wounded and more, serving the country in the most difficult moments. “, he stressed.
Basic Sanitation And Disease Control
The MPLA leader made it known that the large investments to be made in the health sector need strong monitoring of actions in basic sanitation. “It is not enough to invest only in this sector, it is also necessary to do it in basic sanitation, in general”.
In the act that marked the opening of the MPLA electoral campaign, in the district of Camama, João Lourenço underlined: “If we want to control diseases, in particular malaria, we cannot just buy anti-malarials, we need to invest in eliminating the vector of the disease and their transmitters, as well as those of diarrheal diseases, which have claimed the lives of many Angolans, especially children”, he emphasized.
He added, in this sense, that Luanda has millions of inhabitants, and, for that reason, produces a lot of solid waste, including garbage. “These, when not collected, become the main focus of the vast majority of diseases that affect citizens and our children”, she said, to illustrate the picture.
In the last two years, he said, a great effort was made to clean the drainage ditches in Luanda, whose results are already being felt.
The combination of these efforts, he continued, has had a positive impact on the health of citizens. “It is not yet time to claim victory in the fight against garbage and solid waste. It is not the time to do so, but the situation has improved, and we must continue to work to improve collection methods, especially in the treatment of waste”, stressed.
In this order of ideas, João Lourenço took the opportunity to challenge businessmen to make money, also, with the treatment of garbage, because, objectively, the result will contribute to the increase of the quality of life of Angolans.
As an example, he said that in the rest of the world, garbage is a source of wealth, and businessmen earn rivers of money from the treatment, whose derivations lead to the use of garbage and its transformation into a source of energy. “In Angola, it’s not like that yet, but it will have to be. If it’s like that in other countries, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be in Angola”, stressed João Lourenço.
“Our businessmen’s challenge is done. Make money with garbage, earn money by recycling garbage and transforming it into useful goods for citizens, such as, for example, a source of energy”, concluded the president of the MPLA.
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